Hardware.info has a go at breaking the new glass Windows

ALONG WITH THE USUAL range of product tests Hardware.info has also provided us with A look at the inner workings of Vista. Something of a 'Everything you've wanted to know about the Voles new glass window, but were afraid to ask'.

XSreviews has reviewed the Jetart CK6000 HDD Protector. If you think external hard drive enclosures are too bulky or expensive, or if you just want to transport your drives safely, then this rubber edged sleeve is a cheap and easy way to protect a drive that's outside of a case. Not too sure about heat issues though.

BIOS has reviewed the Epson PictureMate 280. Its impressive performance and wide range of connectivity and format options earn it a glowing score of 9 / 10 and the editor's choice.

Motherboards running the nForce 680i chipset are soon to be available and bit-tech brings us a First Look: Asus Striker Extreme. This board won't be cheap by any stretch of the imagination, but it does look like it's going to be an absolute cracker.

Bjorn3d brings us a reviews of ATI Radeon X1950XTX CrossFire. A pair of these cards linked together like that certainly does look formidable and the performance is nothing to be sneezed at either, unfortunately it utilises the original master / slave Crossfire configuration and it doesn't support shader 4.0 or DirectX 10, and while these are not in use yet, they will be relatively soon and if you're paying that much for graphics cards you probably don't want to have to upgrade again for a good long while. µ

* SEND YOUR hardware news to Ian Williams.